Paper-cabinet.



PATENTED JAN. 16, 1906.

J. W. MEAKER.

PAPER CABINET.

APPLIOATION FILED JULY 11,1904.

"niadlttorrwys- IINITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOHN W. MEAKER, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR, BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, TO MEAKER SALES COMPANY, A CORPORATION OF MICHIGAN. I

Specification of Letters Patent.

PAPER-CABINET.

Patented Jan. 16, 1906.

Application filed July 11, 1904:. Serial No. 216,150.

To all whom, it may concern:

Be it known that I, JOHN W. MEAKER, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Paper-Cabinets; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters of reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

This invention relates to a case or cabinet designed for holding writing-paper in form for the convenient use of type-writer operators and to facilitate the assemblage of the original sheets, carbon transfer or copy paper, and sheets on which the carbon copies are to be made in such manner that they may be quickly and readily brought together in readiness for insertion into thetype-writing machine.

The invention consists in the matters hereinafter described, and pointed out in the appended claims.

In the accompanying drawings, illustrating my invention, Figure 1 is a front view of a case or cabinet embodying my invention. Fig. 2 is a plan view of the same. Fig. 3 is a sectional view taken upon line-3 3 of Fig. 2. Fig. 4 is a plan view of one of the removable shelves of said cabinet. Fig. 5 is an enlarged detail section taken on line 5 5 of Fig. 4.

As shown in said drawings, A indicates a case or cabinet which consists of connected bottom, top, side, and rear walls and which is open at one side, the open side constituting the front of the cabinet. The cabinet is made of sufficient depth from front to rear to receive the sheets of writing-paper inserted sidewise into the open front thereof; but its Width or lateral dimension is considerably greater than the length of the longest sheets of paper to be inserted therein.

Within the cabinet are located a series of shelves arranged in superposed relation and supporting carbon-paper, the top shelf D for supporting the sheets which are to form the originals, and the shelf F for supporting the sheets which are to form the carbon copies. Likewise of the lower group G, H, and I the intermediate shelf H is to support carbonpaper, the top shelf G to support sheets of paper from which the originals are to be made, and the lower shelf I to support sheets from which carbon copies are to be made. upper group of shelves D, E, and F is designed to receive shorter pieces of paper, such as are used for short'notes or letters, while the lower set G, H, and I are designed for longer sheets, such as regular letter-paper or legal-cap paper. The intermediate shelves of each set E and H are, moreover, arranged to slide freely in the case, so that they may be drawn outwardly, and are provided with handles e h at their forward edges. Said shelves E and H, which are designed to support the carbon-paper, are made to slide outwardly from the front of the cabinet, so that the sheets of. carbon-paper may be easily ar ranged thereon, it being obvious that inasmuch assaid paper is usually thin and flexible, especially after having been once used, they could not well be arranged by pushing them endwise into the front of the cabinet, so that it is highly desirable that the shelves to receive them should be capable of being drawn outwardly, thereby enabling the sheets of carbon paper to be arranged smoothly on said shelves.

The shelves D, F, G, and I for ordinary writing-paper may be either permanently or movably mounted in the case, but are preferably arranged to slide into and out of the case, so that, if desired, all of the shelves may The be drawn outwardly to bring their front edges a short distance beyond the front of the cabinet to facilitate the removal of the will be understood, however, that the case and shelves may be made of any suitable ma terial.

The shelves D E F G H are provided with a series of right-hand lateral guide-ledges D E F G H, arranged in offset relation to each other, so as to bring them in an inclined line extending from the lower right-hand corner of the cabinet upwardly toward the lefthand corner thereof, and all of the shelves are provided with left-hand lateral guideledges D E F G H P. The right and left hand guide-ledges on the upper set of shelves D, E, and F are arranged at such distance,

of the lowermost shelf I, are cut away or notched at the right-hand side of the cabinet, and the said notches are made of progressively-lncreasing width from the right toward ,the left hand side of the cabinet, with the lateral or transverse margins D E F G and H on the shelves, formed by the notches, spaced laterally to correspond with the positions of the right-hand lateral guide-ledges on the shelves, but with such transverse margin of each shelf at considerable distance to the left of the lateral guide-ledge belonging to the shelf below it, the result of this construction being that the forward right-hand corners of the topmost sheets of the piles of sheetsresting on the several shelves will be exposed, so that they may be readily grasped by the fingers. This feature of construction will be more readily understood by reference to the plan view Fig. 2, from which it will be seen that the notch on the lowermost shelf H is the narrowest one and exposes the margin of the topmost sheet resting on the lowermost shelf I at the right-hand side of said sheet, the notch in the shelf G is wider than that in the shelf H and extends far enough to the left to not only extend over the notch in the shelf H below it, but also to expose the right-hand corner of the topmost sheet resting on the said shelf I-I, while the notches in -.the shelves F, E, and D are successively of greater width and adapted in the case of each shelf to leave a clear space above the righthand corner of the sheet on the shelf below it.

The construction above described in the lateral guide-ledges on the several superposed 4 shelves, together with the notches in the forward edges of said shelves, provides a compact construction in the cabinet as a whole .by which the same may be made in its depth from front to rear not materially greater than the width of the sheets of paper to be contained therein, while at the same time provision isafforded for enabling the sheets of paper on each shelf to be easily and quickly grasped by the fingers in withdrawing them from the cabinet.

In order to provide for exposing the upper edge of the-sheet resting on the top shelf D beneath the top wall a of the case, the front margin of said top wall is arranged to terminate at some distance rearwardly of the front edge of said top shelf, and the top wall is provided with a hinged flap J, which may be thrown forward in a horizontal position, so as to extend over the front part of the top shelf and protect the paper thereon from dust or may be folded rearwardly on the adj acent part of said top wall.

In order that the front edges of the sheets of varying widths placed on the several shelves D, E, F, G, H, and I may be arranged in the same relation to the front edges of the shelves, said several shelves are provided at their rear margins with adjustable strips or ledges (1 cf g h 'L, which strips or ledges form stops for the rear edges of the sheets, against which the said rear edges may be placed in inserting the sheets in the cabinet. Adjustable connection of the said strips with the shelves is shown as formed by screws inserted through transverse slots in the shelves and entering the strips. In Figs. 4 and 5 (showing the shelf E) the screws are marked 6 and the slots in the shelf are marked 6 The rear edges of the shelves when the same are made of sheet metal may be bent upwardly, as shown, to form stiffening-flanges. In cases where the adjustable rear strips or ledges are omitted such upwardly-bent margins or flanges of the shelves may serve as stop-ledges for the rear edges of the sheets.

The lateral guide-ledges both for the right and left hand edges of the paper may be fixed rigidly to the shelves or they may be in whole or in part laterally adjustable to provide for sheets of varying lengths. In the drawings I have shown left-hand guideledges D E F G H and I as made laterally adjustable. Means for adj ustably connecting the said ledges with the shelves, as shown in Figs. 5 and 6, in connection with the shelf E consist of longitudinal slots 6 formed in the shelf, and screws (2 inserted through said slots and entering the strips which constitute the ledges.

The top wall a of the cabinet is provided with lateral or left and right hand guide flanges or ledges K K and with a rear flange or ledge K which flanges or ledges, with the top wall, constitute a paper support or tray adapted to receive and facilitate the arrangement of the sheets of paper drawn severally from the shelves within the cabinet in super posed relation with their edges in coincident relation. It is not, however, strictly necessary to employ both of the lateral guideledges K K, because if one of such ledges only is used in connection with the rear if guideledges K the sheets of paper may be readily and quickly arranged on the paper support with their margins in coincident re lation. The rear ledge K is preferably made adjustable from front to rear on the top wall a, the adjusting device shown for this purpose consisting of screw-bolts k, which. have heads on their lower ends, are inserted from beneath through slots a c in said top wall, and have nuts 7c on their upper ends by which the ledge may be clamped against the top wall. I also preferably employ on the top wall a an adjustable lateral guide-stop L, adapted to control the position of the margins of shorter sheets. In the particular construction shown the said lateral stop consists of a short strip or block secured to the top wall a by means of a screw-bolt Z,

having a head at its lower end and which is inserted through a longitudinal slot 0;, formed in the said top wall a, said bolt having a clamping-nut Z on its upper end.

In the use of the device described the cabinet is filled by placing on the several shelves sheets of Writing and carbon paper, the carbon-paper being placed on the intermediate shelves E and H of each group of three shelves, as hereinbefore described. As said shelves E and H may be drawn outwardly from the cabinet, the carbon-paper may be easily arranged thereon. In arranging the sheets of paper in sets on the top wall of the cabinet a sheet is first drawn from the lowermost shelf F or I of one of the sets of shelves and placed'in position upon the top wall a between the lateral ledges K and K 'or with one of its end margins in contact with one of said ledges and with its rear side margin in contact with the rear guideledge K In the case of a shorter sheet the same may be placed between the right-hand ledge K and the stop L. A sheet of carbon-paper is then drawn from one of the shelves G or H and likewise arranged upon the top of the first sheet and a second-sheet of writing-paper then drawn from one of the shelves D or G and placed over the carbon-sheet. As the sheets are superposed or placed-one upon the other, they may be quickly adjusted in position by bringing their side and end edges against the rear and lateral ledges of the top wall. The longer sheets will of course extend over the adjustable lateral stop L; but

in case of the shorter sheets'they will bev placed with their end edges against the righthand lateral ledge and the said adjustable stop.

To facilitate the removal of the arranged or superposed sheets from the tray or receptacle formed. by the top wall a and its ledges, I have provided in said top wall at the ends of the rear guide-ledge K apertures M M, across which extend the rear edges of sheets placed against said rear ledge. When such apertures are present, the sheets may be easily grasped by inserting a finger or fingers downwardly through one of said apertures behind and beneath the rear edges of the sheets.

The notched construction of the front edges of the shelves described also enables the desired sheets to be drawn out together, if desired, it being obvious that the lowermost sheet of a group of sheets may be first pulled out a short distance, the intermediate carbonsheet then pulled out until its front edge is in line with the front edge of the lower sheet, and a third sheet then pulled out until its front edge is in line with the other two sheets and the three sheets then grasped at their front margins and pulled out together, after which they may be placed upon the top of the cabinet and further arranged to bring their side edges more exactly in parallel relation, if this be found necessary.

In the construction of a case or cabinet embodying my invention the several parts may be made of metal or other material and the details of construction may be modified in various Ways without departure from my invention.

While the cabinet shown and described is adapted for the placing of the sheets therein with their side margins parallel with the front edges of the shelves, yet the same general features of construction illustrated and herein claimed may be employed in a cabinet adapted to receive the sheets with either their longer or shorter margins at the front of the cabinet, it being manifestly possible to so proportion the depth to the width of the cabinet as to receive sheets of any desired size or .shape. By making the rear and lateral guide-ledges adjustable, as described and shown, moreover, sheets of varying dimensions both as to length and width may be placed in the same cabinet.

I claim as my invention 1. A paper-cabinet provided with superposed shelves having guide shoulders or ledges which extend from front to rear of the shelves and which are arranged in laterallyoffset relation to each other.

2. A paper-cabinet provided with superposed shelves having guide shoulders or ledges which extend from front to rear of the shelves and are arranged in offset relation said shelves also having in theirfront margins notches of progressively increasing width from the bottom to the top of the cabinet.

3. A paper-cabinet provided with superposed shelves and having a top wall which forms a paper-support and is provided with a rear ledge and with an adjustablelateral ledge.

4. A paper-cabinet comprising superposed shelves, and having a top wall forming a paper-support, said top wall having stationary rear and lateral guide-ledges-and an adjustable lateral stop.

5. A paper-cabinet comprising superposed shelves and a paper-support provided with rear and lateral guide-ledges, and with an aperture in line with the front surface of the rear guide-ledge.

6. A paper-cabinet provided with superposed shelves and having a top wall which forms a paper-support and is provided with rear and lateral guide-ledges, said top wall having an aperture located in line with the said rear guide-ledge.

7. A paper-cabinet provided with a series of superposed shelves, provided with lateral guide strips or ledges which are adjustable laterally on the shelves,

8. A paper-cabinet provided with a series of superposed shelves, provided with rear guide-ledges that are adjustable toward and from the front edges of the shelves and with lateral guide-ledges that are adjustable later ally on said shelves.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing as my inventionI alfiX my signature, in presence of two witnesses, this 7th day of July, A. D.

JOHN W. MEAKER. Witnesses:

C. CLARENCE POOLE, GERTRUDE BRYoE. 

